In 2021, Lindéngruppen company Höganäs made significant progress on implementing its roadmap to be climate neutral by 2045 – by developing bottom-up action plans with its operations and integrating climate action into its overall business plan.
In 2020, Höganäs launched a Climate Roadmap with the target to become net climate neutral by 2045. This includes direct and indirect emissions, and upstream value chain emissions that cover its supply chain and transport to the customers’ factory gates. Höganäs is also on track to meet its 30 percent reduction interim target for direct and indirect emissions by 2026.
“We took our climate work to the next level in 2021 by working internally with our Climate Roadmap implementation project,” explains Nicklas Lång, Senior Vice President Legal & Sustainability at Höganäs. “The purpose of the project was to get a clear view on how we can reach net-zero by 2045 and to concretise the roadmap on a local level.”
In the spring, a series of workshops with Höganäs sites was held to systematically, source by source, look at how and when it is possible to mitigate the company’s emissions. The outcome was a detailed plan with a defined timeline of activities and costs.
“This bottom-up process resulted in the identification of 170 different emission reduction actions throughout our business,” says Catharina Nordeman, Director Group Sustainability at Höganäs who managed the work with the operations. “We calculated that these combined activities will correspond to the mitigation of 86 percent of our direct and indirect emissions by 2045.”
Actions for 2022 to 2024 have now been integrated into local business plans to coordinate the different activities and future actions will gradually be added. This approach helped the operations understand how they contribute towards the overall Höganäs climate neutrality objective and built local ownership around their own climate action.
“Our cross-departmental project group included representatives from our Global Technology team, which supports sites around the world with projects that reduce environmental impact and cost, was a key partner in this process,” says Nordeman. “Their expertise with solving the technical challenges ahead will be crucial for our work.”
The work in 2021 included a stakeholder analysis that highlighted the importance of collaborating with our internal and external partners. Customers are a key stakeholder group that must be brought onboard to identify business opportunities to charge green premiums for low-carbon products, which would help finance low-carbon investments throughout Höganäs.
Suppliers are another important stakeholder group and supply chain emissions were mapped in more detail in 2021. “Following our mapping of upstream value chain emissions, we now understand much more around the complexities, not only concerned with calculating supplier emissions, but also in terms of how changes in raw materials can impact our carbon footprint from products and processes,” says Nordeman. “Our suppliers have similar, or even greater challenges to us, so we need to work closely together to reduce our value chain emissions.”
The Höganäs Group management team has been heavily involved at every step of the way. In December, the Board will decide on the company’s interim climate target for 2030, which will also include supply chain emissions.
“The management team has been instrumental in integrating our climate objectives into our overall business plan, which has been essential in improving our understanding of the challenges ahead and how we need to allocate our resources.” says Lång. “We look forward to working toward climate neutrality in the years ahead – and to taking our entire organisation, suppliers and customers along on this journey.”
Also the Höganäs board has been heavily involved in the work and, as a natural part of the rotation and at a good time when Höganäs is stable, changes have been made to the board. As of June 2021, Magnus Hall is the new chairman. He has previously been CEO of Vattenfall and Holmen and comes with extensive experience on both change journeys and transitioning to a climate-neutral company.
In addition, Charlotte Strömberg and Anna Månsson joined as new board members and bring experience of both change management and the car industry.
The changes are expected to support the journey ahead where reduced climate footprint is in focus.
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